Cynara
by Dracohellyes
Summary: Jean Louis recalls her childhood with Jem. It was as if they were filling in a void.


**_Harper Lee owns To Kill a Mockingbird. This fic is merely based off a conversation I had with my brother._**

**_Enjoy and please remember to leave a review. Thank you!_**

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><p>Jean Louis gazed upon the vacant street before her house. She recalled the summer that Atticus shot down the mad dog, the one that even someone as hard as Calpurnia didn't hesitate to admit her fear of the creature.<p>

_"That dog is as good dead as it is alive."_

The heat was sweltering, as it is every summer in Maycomb County, and the safety of the porch wasn't enough to sheath her fair skin from the sun's ultra violet rays. But she would take anything over being in Cal's way, or having to help. It was nothing that she couldn't tolerate, or nothing that could overwhelm her fresh pores.

This summer, Jean Louis was aged fourteen years. Her frame had evened out, and it was only last summer that she retired the puerile moniker that those around her were accustomed to.

Like her hair, now falling in long chunks passed her shoulders, the cynaras from the sycamore tree plummeted to her porch. They danced through the air, a summer snowflake, and few shattered; the tendrils fleetingly spread at her feet.

Standing hardly out of the corner of her eye was Jem, now six feet tall and the expression on his face as hard as ever. The glimpse was enough to startle her; he wasn't expected for another hour.

"You're home early."

She skipped saying 'hello', since that would start conversation. Those were few or futile amongst the pair as there was never really anything to say. There hasn't been news in Maycomb for years and all that she needed to know Atticus had informed her. Everything else was left unspoken.

Things had changed a great lot since the Tom Robinson case. Dill's summer stays had become shorter and had come to a halt about four years ago, until eventually even the letters ceased. Atticus' life seemed to revolve around work. Calpurnia grew feebler as she aged, and this summer Jem was eighteen and kept occupied working the cash register at a shop across from the courthouse.

Jean Louis labeled it as the most miserable summer of her life.

" 'Was only staying until noon." he replied.

She didn't question it. Jem usually worked until at least mid-afternoon.

Jem was one she could never spot any change in, and she supposed it was because she was with him nearly every day of her life, which she savored before he went to study at the university a few hours south. To Jean, he will always be the same boy with blue eyes and wisdom plucked straight out of their father's mouth. He was reminiscent nowadays, nostalgic even.

He kicked the dirt around, propping a leg onto the steps, and laid out his hand for a small cynara to be placed gracefully in his palm. He snorted.

She stared at the caked- up dirt under her toe nails. The way his mouth parted, the snort- it was apparent he was ready to say something.

" 'Don't suppose you recall throwing these at Mrs. Dubose's porch?" Jem's voice, deepened by age and pending adulthood, left behind leftover traces of innocence- all engulfed by an overall southern accent.

"I remember."

"And Dill would linger around her house for hours awaiting her reaction?"

She laughed, dryly, "That woman was plain hell."

"Atticus didn't think so."

The pair fell silent. Jem eyed his sister with immense concern. Like Mrs. Dubose's abandoned camellias, Scout too, had wilted. Each year, since Dill's last stay in Maycomb, she grew more and more melancholy. Calpurnia believed that Dill's presence had a certain rarity to it that brought out the best in Jean Louis, he was the male counterpart. Jem had to agree.

"What's got you down, Scout?"

She groaned. He was aware that the question irked her even more so than the addition to her old nickname to it.

"'Nothing to do."

Jem contemplated this for a moment, for which he could barely decide whether or not to press on further. It was as close to a risk as he had come near in years.

"Would you-" he paused, "Like to litter Mrs. Dubose's porch?"

Though baffled, she found herself smiling. No one had lived in the run down house for years, and their deceased neighbor was the last occupant. Nine years of graffiti and mildew smothered the walls and every time she went by it sparked a silent chuckle. How she would've loved to see such a thing on that poor, old woman's house. Of course, that was before she was aware that Mrs. Dubose was a morphine addict, and had she known, Jean Louis wouldn't have believed that she was the devil incarnate herself.

She leapt from the swing.

"Let's go."

The siblings gathered the tree's fruit. As they partook in the juvenile activity that had been given up years ago, she realized that it was as if she and Jem were filling in the void of Dill's absence.

Scout stepped back to admire the sight of cypsela of cynaras scattered.

For the first time in a while, she felt contented.


End file.
